@ANef_is_Enuf is there some reason you want to learn how to be jealous? Is there some reason you want to learn to not trust your husband around other women when he is affectionate with them? Is there some reason you want to become suspicious and envious and want to hire private detectives so you can know your husband’s every little move when he is out of your sight?
You know what is going on. You know that when most people say they trust their spouse that is because their spouse never strays from their sight. Most people have a hard time imagining a spouse having a very close relationship with another friend of the opposite sex and not being threatened by that. It sounds like this even bothers your husband. Perhaps he thinks that if you don’t mind him cuddling with some other woman, that means you wouldn’t mind doing the equivalent thing yourself.
Frankly, I think most people feel that if you don’t watch someone closely, they’ll fool around, given the chance. They may have a hard time imagining not being threatened when a spouse has close relationships with others.
I don’t think you can learn monogamy, if monogamy is what you seem to think it is. For me, that’s not monogamy and I can’t for the life of me see why you would want it. I think your trusting self is far more advanced than the non-trusting self. I think you are more loving and giving that way. You clearly are warmed by your husband’s happiness that he gets from forming close relationships—or would be, if that has yet to happen.
I think it is fine to not fit that monogamous mold. I wouldn’t want to. That sounds like closing down and drawing in—isolating. I’m pretty sure you know what isolation is like and that it is a sense of empathy that keeps you from wanting anything to do with anything that puts barriers between people.
When you’ve been in psychologically dangerous places, where you are alone to death, and isolated and cannot break through—and when you survive that—I think it changes you and your feelings about jealousy. I know it changed me. Connections to others are precious things. They are far too rare. Yet they scare others because they easily seem inappropriate. Well, they don’t have to be inappropriate and I think that you understand that and can intuit which ones are fine and which people you can trust.
That sense of being able to read people is what you want and what you should trust. That is what will keep you safe and will enable you to find the connections you need. Or so I believe. I think you know what I’m talking about, but maybe I’m just projecting like mad. Wouldn’t be the first time. But do you feel you know people? Do you trust your sense of being able to read people? I think I would trust your judgment, and I hardly know you.